← Covenant Business Network The Story
The Founders

Merrill & Emily
Burrows

A veteran software founder and the wife who built him. The marriage behind Covenant Business Network — and behind every business decision either of us has ever made.

Section 01

The Burrows Team

Merrill Burrows
Co-Founder · Builder
Merrill Burrows
Veteran · Entrepreneur · Software Founder
Founder of ExitSaaS Automations. 15+ years building businesses, custom CRMs, and automation systems for owners who refuse to rent their own tools. U.S. Air Force veteran. TQM-trained, faith-anchored, and most days you'll find him at the gym before you've poured your first cup of coffee.
Faith Family Freedom Country Fitness
Emily Burrows
Co-Founder · Heart of the Mission
Emily Burrows
PA-C · Accountant · Air Force Captain (separated)
Started her career at Ernst & Young — one of the Big Four. Then trained as a physician assistant and was commissioned in the United States Air Force as a Captain. Today she practices as a civilian PA and helps run the family businesses. Best friend. Prayer partner. The reason any of this works.
Faith Family Freedom Country Fitness

Full personal pages: exitsaas.com/merrill-burrows  ·  exitsaas.com/emily-burrows

Section 02

Merrill's Story

Merrill Burrows

From Airman to Entrepreneur

Founder · ExitSaaS Automations

I love this country and the people who built it — and I believe small business is the engine that keeps American freedom running. I didn't get into software to get rich off someone else's pain. I got into it because I watched hardworking small business owners — moms and dads with families to feed — get bled dry, month after month, by companies that charge them to rent the tools their own businesses depend on.

My faith drives everything I do. Faith. Family. Freedom. Country. Fitness. Those aren't slogans — they're the five things I live by, and they're the five pillars CBN is built on too.

Late 1990s · USAF
Where Discipline Meets Process
My foundation was built in the United States Air Force — a uniform I'd wear again tomorrow. I served, trained in Total Quality Management, and learned the discipline Fortune 500 companies pay consultants millions to teach. Plan. Do. Check. Act. That framework runs through everything I build today.
Early 2000s · Self-Taught
Teaching Myself to Build
Before YouTube. Before Stack Overflow. Just me, a stack of programming books from Barnes & Noble, and an absolute refusal to quit. I discovered that technology — in the right hands — is the world's greatest equalizer.
Post-Military · Business Owner
Betting on Myself
After the military I did what generations of Americans have done — I bet on myself. I launched my own manufacturing business with a wife, kids, and a mortgage counting on me to figure it out. I built my own CRM, my own automation stack, my own solutions. Not as a side project. As a survival strategy. As a love letter to my family.
Today · On a Mission
Fighting for Small Business
Now I take everything I've built — the military discipline, the technical expertise, the years in the entrepreneurial trenches — and I put it to work for the small business owners who keep this country running. This is my calling. This is what I was built for.
Section 03

Emily's Story

A Life Built on Service

Co-Founder · Heart of the Mission

People ask Merrill how he does what he does. The honest answer: he doesn't do it alone. Behind every long night of coding, every hard client conversation, every prayer over a stuck problem, there's a woman holding the whole thing together — quietly, steadily, faithfully.

Emily's story isn't loud. It doesn't try to be. It's a quiet thread of service — to country, to patients, to family, to faith. Every chapter of her life made her into exactly the partner this mission needed.

First Career · Ernst & Young
Numbers Were the Starting Line
Emily started with a degree in accounting and went straight to Ernst & Young — one of the Big Four. Long days, real pressure, and the kind of precision that doesn't tolerate shortcuts. That's where she sharpened the eye for detail that still catches what everyone else misses.
A New Calling · Medicine
From Spreadsheets to Stethoscopes
The numbers were never going to be the whole story. She went back to school and trained as a physician assistant. The same hands that audited a P&L would learn to stitch a wound. Two callings, one heart.
USAF · Captain & PA
Serving in Uniform
She was commissioned as an officer in the United States Air Force and served as a Physician Assistant with the rank of Captain. She wore the uniform of a country she loves and cared for the airmen who keep it safe. Discipline, duty, and quiet courage — that foundation never left her.
Today · Civilian PA & Partner
The One We Build For
After separating from the Air Force she continued practicing as a civilian PA — and stepped in as Merrill's partner in building the family businesses. Best friend. Counselor. Positive critic. Prayer partner. Adventure companion. The reason any of this works.
Emily Burrows
Why CBN Exists

The Five Pillars Aren't a Marketing Frame.
They're a Marriage.

"We live by the same five things — faith, family, freedom, country, and fitness — and most days Emily lives them harder than I do. Covenant Business Network exists because we wanted a room where those values weren't softened, hidden, or apologized for. They're the floor everything is built on."

— Merrill & Emily Burrows
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